Two Trainers' Journey to the Ultimate Certification

Seeking Shinies

Shiny Pokémon. In the decade or so I’ve been playing the Pokémon games, I have not once caught a shiny in the wild. Yeah, I picked up the shiny Legendary Dogs and I caught the red Gyarados at Lake of Rage, but that’s just not the same. It doesn’t give me the same thrill as catching or hatching a shiny.

(I feel the need to note here that there are some Pokémon that will never be encountered as a shiny at this point in time. In Generation V, these Pokémon are Arceus, Victini, Reshiram, and Zekrom. If you are battling someone who has a shiny version of these three Legendaries, your opponent has hacked Pokémon and you are fully within your right to end the match.)

Catching a shiny Pokémon through legitimate means is no easy feat. There is only a 1 in 8,192 chance of encountering a shiny Pokémon. But this doesn’t mean that if you go out and run into 8,192 Blitzle that one of them will be shiny. The ratio resets every time. So each and every Pokémon you run into carries a 1 in 8,192 chance of being shiny. The odds certainly aren’t in your favor, and they haven’t been in mine for the last decade.

This ratio can be decreased to 1 in 1,366 by using the Masuda method (the “international marriage” method). The Masuda method is fairly simply, honestly, and increases your chance of hatching a shiny Pokémon by six times. What must be done is breeding a Pokémon from your game with a Pokémon received in an international trade. There’s some weird game coding math involved, and if you’re interested, Bulbapedia has a good article on the Masuda Method, but what it boils down to is that a Pokémon from your game breeding with a Pokémon received in an international trade drastically reduces the ratio of obtaining a shiny Pokémon. International trades can be made over the Geonet.

Sam and I were discussing some of the most awesome shinies out there, and perhaps the most truly epic shiny is Charizard. Charizard is completely black as a shiny Pokémon. It’s the kind of Pokémon that instills fear in his foes. And what would be the most awesome of all awesome Shiny Charizard?

Shiny. Solar Power. Charizard.

But the odds of getting a shiny Charizard with his DreamWorld ability are very slim, even with the Masuda Method as there is no guarantee that a Pokémon will have the DW Ability even when breeding with a DW female. So there is a chance that if you do manage to hatch a Shiny, it will instead have Charizard’s normal ability. Which is far less epic.

This discussion with Sam wound to an inevitable conclusion.

Me, 90-years-old, in a retirement home.

“One more egg… Just one more… I know this is the one…”

“Mrs. Erickson? We need to take the DS from you, now.”

“DON’T TOUCH ME YOU DIRTY WHIPPER-SNAPPER!”

“Mrs. Erickson. The DS is dead. We need to take you back to your room and let it charge.”